<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>all i ever wanted was to pick apart the day (put the pieces back together my way) by nervouswaltz (iridescent_blue)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893455">all i ever wanted was to pick apart the day (put the pieces back together my way)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescent_blue/pseuds/nervouswaltz'>nervouswaltz (iridescent_blue)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>2 out of 4 sbi family pog, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mercy Killing, November 16, Philza POV, based on what phil mentioned in the march 6 stream, i forget how to tag ugh fuck, introspection into life, no beta we die like how dramatically phil kills wilbur in this, retelling of the button room</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:41:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,384</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescent_blue/pseuds/nervouswaltz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He gets a letter, every week, without fail. No return address, nothing but his own. <i>Hey Dad<i>, they always start, detailing adventures and hijinks. An idea to sell drugs with some friends he’s met along the way, a van as their base of operations, tales of revolution and independence and fuck, Phil is so proud of his son. So, so, proud. He sits in his pocket of the world, draining the sea away and flying to even further lands, building an astonishing empire, while Wilbur leads a raggedy revolution with kids younger than him, building a place to <i>emancipate the brutality and the tyranny of their rulers.<i></i></i></i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>
      <i>
        
      </i>
    </i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>
      <i>
        <i>  <i><br/>    <i><br/>      <i><br/>        <i>But the letters stop, one day, and Phil has to go get his son.</i></i><br/>      </i><br/>    </i><br/>  </i></i>
      </i>
    </i>
  
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Technoblade &amp; Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot &amp; Phil Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all i ever wanted was to pick apart the day (put the pieces back together my way)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>based on phil's comment today (3/6/2021) about how wilbur used to write him letters and one day they stopped, and then phil knew something was wrong, as well as the fact that he doesn't know if he made the right call. and i kinda, had that idea, and cranked out 4.3k words for the first time in MONTHS</p>
<p>title from Daylight by Aesop Rock because I've had it stuck in my brain for all of today and think the chorus fits what Phil said today</p>
<p>have fun, read with caution, this has the button room in it pretty much word for word and then very dramatized so! just be careful lmao</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He gets a letter, every week, without fail. No return address, nothing but his own. <em> Hey Dad, </em>  they always start, detailing adventures and hijinks. An idea to sell drugs with some friends he’s met along the way, a van as their base of operations, tales of revolution and independence and  <em> fuck, </em>  Phil is so proud of his son. So,  <em> so, </em>  proud. He sits in his pocket of the world, draining the sea away and flying to even further lands, building an astonishing empire, while Wilbur leads a raggedy revolution with kids younger than him, building a place to  <em> emancipate the brutality and the tyranny of their rulers. </em> </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>His jukebox spins with a recording of his son’s voice, singing that song, over and over again. It’s soft and sweet, full of the fire that’s always burned deep in Wilbur’s core, the desire to be <em> more, </em>  be  <em> greater, </em> leave a mark on the world that scores down to bedrock. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>There are stories of his friends, of a lover, of a <em> son. </em>  Phil is a grandfather, and he wishes, he waits for the day that he will meet his grandson. He wants to meet them all. Tommy and Tubbo, kids thick as thieves who would follow Will into hell and come out singing along. Niki, lively, singing with Wilbur about things like independence, providing that knock on the back of the head Phil isn’t there to give. There’s Eret, spoken of fondly and then cut from the narrative after a long,  <em> long </em>  letter, two weeks overdue,  <em> it was never meant to be </em> written again and again, until the pen ran dry and the pages tore. Wilbur detailed what it was like to die, and Phil cried, wrapped in quilts, as he read the pen strokes outlining the burning pain of his soul leaving him and reattaching, every nerve screaming in pain. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Phil’s legs twitched with the phantom pain, reading that, the faint scars of rotted baby fingernails and spider fangs on his shins aching, the most recent life lost. He couldn’t even be there for his son the first time, and so he sent a letter, to an old friend, busy tearing his way through competition after competition, the unkillable, the <em> blood god. </em> </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>There were funny stories too, stories where Wilbur seemed genuinely happy. A pseudo-religion, led by Dream himself, the faceless enigma that Wilbur never spent much time discussing. The letters had a return address, now, <em> L’Manberg, </em> a formally recognized nation. Phil could afford the postage. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>He kept his envelopes neatly pressed in a stack, tucked into the desk he barely sat down to use. His son could handle himself. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Until suddenly, his tone turned somber, and his letters began to reflect the news that reached Phil’s ears. <em> An election, </em>  the people whispered,  <em> for the presidency of L’Manberg. </em>  Wilbur had taken on a new last name.  <em> Soot. </em>  Appropriate, for the time he spent drawing on the stones of the hearth with cold charcoal.  <em> Schlatt, </em>  an old friend from Wilbur’s teen years traveling the world, running against him.  <em> Fundy, </em>  his  <em> grandson, </em> all grown up and running against his father. Phil has faith, he’s always had faith, he has no more chances but he always has faith in his son, that Wilbur will win. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The letters stop, for a long time. They come back, after too many weeks, where Phil was <em> sure </em>  that no one dies twice, that fast, for them to be gone, forever. Wouldn’t one of his friends have sent a letter out? They were all so excited to meet him, Wilbur had said, they couldn’t wait until they met  <em> Philza himself, the absolute legend, they call you a legend, Dad. </em>  Surely one of them would have sent  <em> something. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The letters come back, after a long time. Crumpled. Once a week, no less, and Wilbur has died again, an undignified death, shot in the back as he ran after being banished. Schlatt is not one to be trifled with, not anymore. Perhaps he was never to be underestimated. They live in a ravine now, Tommy and Wilbur, making spies on the inside and planning a grand revolution. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Wilbur, for the first time in <em> ages, </em>  asks for help. He doesn’t ask for Phil to step in, knows that survival, above all else, is what Phil prioritizes, and won’t dare infringe upon that. But he asks for a favor, reinforcements, backup,  <em> Techno. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Techno stays for a week before heading off to meet them, in a new base, <em> Pogtopia, </em> a failed candidacy realized. “Y’know,” he says over dinner, “there’s no way this ends well.”</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Phil knows. <em> Fuck, </em> Phil knows. “Wilbur has always bitten off more than he can chew,” he responds, too quiet for the size of the house. “He’ll be fine with you there,” he lies, not to Techno but to himself. When has the blood god ever brought anything but strife in his wake? He leaves corpses hanging off the battlements and crushed armor, Wilbur will not go unscathed, no matter the history they have. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“If you say so,” Techno mutters, taking another bite and settling back into silence. It used to be so <em> lively </em> where they sit, Phil explaining how he learned to build castles and how it feels to fly through the clouds, Wilbur with his notebook, working on songs even as he shoveled dinner into his mouth. Dust sits on the mantle, now, on Wilbur’s guitar, lonely in his room. The bed is made, the clothes are folded, in memoriam to a boy who can never exist again. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Techno leaves, bright and early, on a crisp fall morning. His bag is packed with food, he has one of Phil’s best horses, they are not immortal but they have ruled too long to be anything other than close allies. Phil wishes Techno well, Techno wishes Phil safety and prosperity. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Just like that, he’s alone again. He reads through the letters, from the beginning. Fewer exclamation points, more periods, longer, wandering sentences. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>There’s a room with a button. Eleven and a half stacks, seven hundred and thirty-six crates of TNT. Wilbur’s words turn messy, scratched and incoherent, yet Phil treasures them all the same. That’s his son, slowly slipping into madness, a short life packed with too much, too fast, a burden he was never meant to bear but that he lifted anyways. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Techno writes, once. <em> Phil - he’s not doing well, </em>  the letter reads.  <em> He’s giving up on L’Manberg. He keeps talking about blowing it all up. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> I’m worried for him, Phil. Your boy needs you. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>For all intents and purposes, there are times where Wilbur seems genuinely fine, laughing as Tommy gets caught between pistons and Tubbo dumps water on his head, planning a grand revolution. But those are different letters, two sandwiched into one envelope, bulky and barely meeting the mail requirements. Wilbur’s neat chicken scratch, next to bleeding ink and paper warped with tear stains, unfolded onto Phil’s desk as he reads, as he flexes the muscles in his shoulders, as he asks the mail carriers and the shopkeepers how far away L’Manberg is, out of his own curiosity, thinking about how far he can fly in a day, how hard he can push himself if worst comes to worst. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>All of Wilbur’s letters are neatly dated, a four-day delay from him sealing them and sending them off to Phil carefully slicing them open with a paring knife (all these years, and he’s never carved himself a letter opener). November fifth, he gets a letter from Techno, dated from the first, a last chance in sixteen days. The countdown begins. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Nothing will be fine. Techno’s own letters have been asking, for <em> months, </em> how to carry skulls back home without them crumbling to ash in his hands, the best ways to treat the gangrenous flesh fighting wither skeletons leaves. Techno is an anarchist before he is loyal to those he barely knows, he sees the problems that Phil does, a crystal clear reflecting pool mirroring the decades he’s lived back at him. Anarchy is the only option to survive, to not be sorely disappointed, and it’s the system that Techno rules. Blood for the blood god, the voices demand it. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>So nothing will be fine. Not with Wilbur’s more frantic scrawl in an unhinged note on the back of one of Techno’s envelopes, the false smile Phil can see etched into his face as he insists it’s <em> fine, </em>  everything’s  <em> fine, </em>  it will all go  <em> well, and if it doesn’t, I’ll just blow it all up, Dad. </em> </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Another letter arrives, from Techno, on the eleventh. They’re ready for revolution, assembling the final pieces they need, the last alliances, they’re going to ambush Manberg and take it back, stick the <em> L  </em>where it was always meant to be, in Schlatt’s face. Wilbur’s notes grow fully incoherent, sentences dropping off and picking up and Phil sobs, grieves his son who is already too far gone.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>He spends the twelfth stopping his mail and arranging for the upkeep of his house for however long he may be away. He spends the thirteenth with his animals, looking them over and giving instructions to the farmhands, making sure they know how to shear and butcher and who to bring the products to. The fourteenth passes much the same, yet he focuses on his farms, double checks his pocket of the nether to fortify where blazes threaten to break glass, ensures his machines are harvesting as planned.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The fifteenth is spent in Wilbur’s room. He cleans, wiping dust off of guitars and glass-blown orcas, looking through notebooks, and playing all of Wilbur’s favorite music loud enough for the whole town to hear. Phil begins to mourn without knowing what the word even means anymore. He breaks at four, holding a yellow sweater close as dust motes float through the air, wings shadowing a space his son could be, should be, once was, never will be. He cleans off each trinket with care, remakes the bed and fluffs the pillows, runs his hands across the gifts he gave his son, emeralds and lapis and totems, potion bottles in a chest below the bed for fever, cold, heartache and sleeplessness. He lights every candle Wilbur once loved, inhales the scent of his son and his exhale screams grief as he crumples, the world folding up around him. He has never had to say goodbye like this.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The morning of the sixteenth is cold. Phil’s breath shows in front of him as he locks the door, a click that rattles his bones with finality. He doesn’t bring anything with him. He needs to be as aerodynamic as possible, going faster than he could ever believe, just food and water in a pack strapped to his side. The sun isn’t even up yet as he tucks the key under a plant pot, takes a final look back, and takes to the air, flying the course he could chart in his sleep. The sun bleeds red over the horizon, and Phil is not a sailor, but he heeds the warnings the world pushes his way nonetheless. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>L’Manberg is grander than he ever could have dreamed, towers and stages and beautiful homes. Wilbur’s mark is scratched all over it, from how the houses are built to how the paths are connected, the rhythms of his son’s drive to make something <em> more </em> strikingly present.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The control room is an easy find. Wilbur told him, under the assumption he would never be there, a confession that he could find it in his sleep, that he has, waking to his fingers reaching towards the button. A crevice in a hillside, and Phil tucks his wings and <em> dives, </em> snapping them back out to catch himself, feet before he smacks into the ground. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>And he waits. Wilbur is talking to himself, the voices in his head, the one thing Phil wishes he never passed on, muttering the lyrics over and over again, how they’re wrong, how there <em> was </em>  a special place, but not anymore. Phil drinks in the first snippets of his son’s voice that he’s heard in ages, no longer crackling along with the wear of a disc, no longer a distant memory. He sounds  <em> tired, </em> the pressure was never his to bear but he took it anyway. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“It’s over,” Wilbur says, with a finality that surprises him, and Phil’s legs move before he can even think.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“What are you doing,” he says, stepping into the hallway. His son, his beautiful son, stands broken before him, tears running down his face. The bags under his eyes are worse than Phil’s ever seen them, and he curses whatever gods exist, whatever cruel beings rule the End and the Overworld (for there is no god in the Nether, there never was), that no one <em> told him sooner.  </em>Wilbur is a shell of a man, a boy in a too-long trench coat, shaking where he stands. The button is eerier in person, just a button, a small square of wood on a wall, Wilbur’s shaky writing on the walls, charcoal, they’re inside the hearth of his youth. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>It’s all Phil can do to not scoop him up and fly him home, miles and miles carrying his child back to a place that he can heal him, he can <em> help </em> him. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Phil?” Wilbur says, in disbelief. He slouches forward, exhausted.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Phil hums. There’s nothing else he can do. “What were you doing here?” He asks, gently, like the time Wilbur tried to build his own city in the sky and fell out of a tree and broke his arm. He’s not mad. He just wants to help. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Do you know what this button is?” Wilbur asks, tentatively. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Uhuh. I do.” Phil can’t help but be the slightest bit pissed, like the time he found a bottle of vodka, empty, in Wilbur’s dresser. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Have you heard the song, on the walls,” Wilbur says, and Phil nods. “I was just saying, I made this big point, and it was poignant and it's that, there <em> was </em> a special place, but it’s not there anymore, it’s not-”</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“It is there,” Phil says gently, “You’ve just won it back, Will.” He speaks like the time Wilbur played a song in the center of town and a teenager, barely older than Wilbur but enough to make the difference, threw a stick at him and told him no one cared.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Wilbur slams his hand onto the arm of the chair so hard Phil swears he hears something crack, be it his son or the wood. The chair sits facing the button, a television tuned to one channel, self-doubt and loathing, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Always on. “Phil, I’m always <em> so close </em>  to pressing this button, Phil,” he  <em> screams, </em>  and Phil’s heart  <em> breaks </em>  for his son. “I have been- I have been here like seven or eight times I’ve been here.  <em> Seven or eight times.” </em> His voice is hoarse, Phil heard the loudspeakers booming with a voice that could have been him as he flew, a leader of a country, living in disgrace. “I’ve been here so many times,” he whispers, as explosions shake the ground under his feet. “They’re fighting!” He says, throwing his hands up in the air, wild gestures very nearly hitting the button. “They’re fighting,” he says, again, resigned to the trail of destruction Techno brings with him like a plague.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“And you want to just blow it all up,” Phil says, like the night after the first performance, where he gently pried Wilbur’s fingers off the neck of his guitar, kept him from bashing it to bits behind their house.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Wilbur curls in on himself. “Yeah,” he whispers, “I do, I think, I-” he sniffles. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“You fought so hard to get this land back,” Phil says, “so hard,” like the time he found Wilbur in front of the fireplace ablaze, holding all of his songs in a neat stack, staring distantly into the flames. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“I don’t even know if it works anymore, Phil. I don’t even know if the button works,” Wilbur says, tripping over his own words. “I could- I <em> could  </em>press it, and it might-” he sighs again. The coat he wears is stained. Phil wishes he packed his son a change of clothes in his little bag. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Do you really want to take that risk?” Phil asks, earnestly, and they laugh to themselves, like the time Phil said the same thing before Wilbur decided to enter into a competition, the bard, learning to duel. “There is a lot of TNT potentially connected to that button.” Wilbur’s face drops.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Phil, there was a saying, by a traitor, once part of L’Manberg, a traitor, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Eret?” Wilbur asks, like Phil doesn’t read those letters about Eret <em> monthly, </em> like he doesn’t remember his son’s life through bits and pieces and letters, once weekly, Wednesdays for Will. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Yeah?” He says slowly, like the day Wilbur asked him if he knew what it was like to fall out of love, eyes dark and head hanging low. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“He had a saying, Phil,” Wilbur says, jaw set and eyes determined, clear for the first time since Phil walked into this hidey-hole of a room. Wilbur turns away, and he can <em> hear </em> the tears in his eyes, see them in the way he holds his shoulders. “It was never meant to be!” Wilbur says, simply, a fact of life, and he presses the button, turning back to Phil. Something clears in his eyes.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Oh my god,” Phil says, throwing himself forward, wrapping his son in an embrace he should’ve done minutes, hours, weeks ago, flinging his wings around them and gritting his teeth as the explosions start to rock his core. “You didn’t,” he mutters in disbelief, as the wall in front of him is blasted to pieces. There is no time like this one, no time like the present, where he watched his son destroy something he loved, something he poured his heart and soul into, and did nothing. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The explosions fade as fast as they begin, leaving nothing but a ringing in Phil’s ears and the eerie silence after disaster. The worst part about witnessing an explosion is not the shrapnel, not the heat of the blast, not the piercing sounds, it’s the silence that follows. “Oh my <em> gods </em> , Will,” he breathes to himself, and his son makes fists in his cloak and  <em> pulls, </em> six years old and scared of booming thunder again. “It’s all gone.”</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Wilbur inhales, exhales, finally free. “<em> My </em>  L’Manberg, Phil,” he crows, pushing Phil’s torn and bleeding wings out of the way, standing on his own, “my unfinished symphony,  <em> forever unfinished,” </em> he screams to the world, buckling under the weight that he has held on his own for so long, sloughing it off and letting it crash and burn on its way down. “If I can’t have this,” he shouts to the sky, “no one can, Phil.” </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Oh my god,” Phil mutters. This is barely his son, a faint echo. <em> What did they do to you? </em>  He asks himself. What did Dream do, what was the tipping point, where did he fall off,  <em> why wasn’t he there. </em></p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Kill me, Phil,” Wilbur says, the three words Phil never wanted to hear, he’s far from immortal but hailed as a god and he is <em>benevolent,</em> he is <em>kind,</em> he is not a murderer. But deep in his soul, the voices that blew it all up, the voices that wreaked havoc and destruction, they clamor for blood as well. And Phil has indulged them, streaking through the Nether to bastions of piglins, bombing them to feed the voices with their screams. “Phil, kill me,” Wilbur chants, “stab me with a sword, murder me now,” he says, his words blurring, tears streaming down his face. “Kill me, Killza, <em>Killza,</em> <em>do it, kill me, Phil, murder me.”</em> He throws his own sword at Phil’s feet, of course, he would allow him the dignity of a sword, he wouldn’t force Phil to beat him to death with his fists or snap his neck with a sickening <em>crunch,</em> of course, he would give Phil that clinical detachment he always maintained when he slaughtered and butchered cows, chickens, and pigs alike. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Look,” Wilbur says, sweeping a hand out to the ruins of L’Manberg, where citizens and soldiers stand together, pulling bodies out of the wreckage and heaving boulders in the search of those missing, “they all want you to.” <em> They don’t. </em> Wilbur won’t see that, he’s trapped in the funhouse mirrors of his brain, fog creeping around his feet and up into his lungs, showing him what he needs to see. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“You’re my <em> son,” </em> Phil cries, broken and open, picking up the sword. He can’t remember if he’s ever cried in front of his own son, but it doesn’t matter now, as the tears stream down both their faces and they begin to grieve the months of their relationship they lost to Wilbur’s wanderlust and Phil’s caution. “No matter what you’ve done- I can’t,” he says, as Wilbur drops to his knees, leaning himself back, presenting his chest to Phil, a perfect target. He knows where to strike, how to do it to be the least painful, how to angle it to pierce his spinal cord and end it all in at least a semi-humane way, but he can’t. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>“Look, <em> look, </em>  how much work went into this and it’s  <em> gone,” </em> Wilbur says, and his tears are not of sadness but of relief, catharsis, the shackles around his wrists and ankles unlocked. The world should be his to explore, but he’s insisting his end be here. On his own terms. “Do it,” he says, serious, and Phil falls to his knees in front of Wilbur, presses the sword to his sternum, and holds their foreheads together.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p><em> I’m so sorry, </em>  Phil says, into the slivers of empty space between them.  <em> For everything.  </em>Wilbur’s eyes cry out in pain, nightmare after nightmare streaking by his retinas, wide awake. His son is suffering, he knows. It’s the right choice. Wilbur has suffered too much for too long, if Phil let him live now he would fling himself off a cliff, and then Phil wouldn’t even get to say goodbye. He pulls his son infinitesimally closer and presses a kiss to his forehead, goodnight but not goodbye.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>It’s humane, but Phil is so terribly, <em> achingly </em> human. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>It doesn’t take long for the sword to pierce Wilbur’s skin, but the push feels like it takes an eternity, a lifetime, Phil would gladly give up his last life and move on if it meant his son continued forward, continued building a legacy, Phil has left his mark on the world and Wilbur’s will not be a crater and the story of a villain, but it will. It always will. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>He chokes down a sob as he sheathes his sword in his son, holds back a scream as he twists the sword, and <em> feels </em> the moment that Wilbur goes limp, lifeless and dead. Then the scream leaves him, anguished and stained in his son’s blood, red skies in the morning before he took sail. “You couldn’t just win?” he asks his son’s corpse, still warm in the late afternoon light, blood seeping onto his robes and staining green and white a uniform crimson. The human body has at least four and a half liters of blood in it, and Phil can feel it baptizing him in death, mixing with his bloody wings as he holds his son close, drying his eyes on his coat. It was never meant to be like this. “You had to just throw your toys out of the pram?” He would give anything to turn the clock back to then, to raise Wilbur, the light of his life, the focal point of his existence, the dedication etched on every palace he has built for the past twenty-four years, one more time, to do it all again. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Distantly, he remembers Techno’s letter, detailing eight withers, ready to go. Nothing in his way. So Phil picks up his son, cradles him gently, like a newborn, unscathed by the sharp edges of the earth and the razor edges of other humans, and he runs.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Wilbur left home bright and early, on a crisp summer morning, dewdrops clinging to the grass. He leaves the world for the last time in the fading shafts of sunlight, a November afternoon, his father’s tears gracing his lifeless cheeks where his own eyes should be crying tears of relief.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Phil meets his grandson with his son’s blood dried on his hands, and he runs, like a coward. He runs far, far away, to a place that reminds him of where he lived, once, a lifetime ago. He builds a base of operations, gets his gear, <em> survives </em> like he always has. And yet. He dreams of Wilbur’s tattered cloak, the last minutes with his son, if only he had been faster, if only he had left earlier, if only if only if only if only.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>If only he had more time. Maybe he could’ve taken his son back home, laid him down in bed, brought him soup and let him cry, lifted the weight of the world off Atlas’ shoulders and held it on his own, for how could he have abandoned his son like that?</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>How could he have done that? Taken the sword that Wilbur once wielded, leather soft under his grip, carefully shined and maintained, and sent it through his boy’s heart? Wilbur was in pain, Wilbur was hurting more than the world could know, crushed by his own skull, yet Phil took the easy route out, that he made Wilbur swear not to take when he wrote of asthma and cancer and trains and destinations he’d never reach. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p><em> It was the right call, </em>  he says to himself, wrapped in a cloak, a blanket, another quilt, pressed into the corner. If only the world could see him now,  <em> the infallible Philza, </em> reduced to ash and bone and ruin over a decision he never should have made. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>There was no right call, that late afternoon, his wings screaming in pain as he clutched his son close and shielded him from the explosion, a protector to the end, until he wasn’t.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>If only he had left earlier. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope that was cool, i didn't fuckin beta it, i started writing it at around 8:50 pm and have not stopped and it's almost midnight so straight up if you see shitty grammar or anything know that i do not care lmao</p>
<p>no twitter for u hee hee. you could leave kudos or a comment if you're feeling it and are also cool and awesome and like to support gay men who ignore editing essays in favor of writing Minecraft roleplay fic. okay goodnight sleep well</p>
<p>one of my friends bet when i was at 2.8k that i would break 4k (i gave them a 50/50) so kat you are correct and i hope i made you cry</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>